300-400 level courses are on special topics and are more advanced. They often presuppose some basic knowledge in the field and should be more difficult courses than courses at the 1-199 levels. The department is trying to insure that some 400 level courses, although substantially more difficult, are also small in size; they thus may be suitable for graduate students.
HIST 318 Italian History from Napoleon to Berlusconi
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
The seminar looks at the evolution of modern Italy from the Napoleonic Era through the unification of the Kingdom in 1861, through its crisis in the First World War and the subsequent struggle for control of the new mass society. It looks at the emergence of the first fascist regime and the first modern dictatorship under Benito Mussolini; the rise and consolidation of that dictatorship, its descent into anti-semitism, defeat in war and the civil war of 1943-45, which followed that defeat. Out of that crisis a new prosperous republic has grown. It traces that story to the latest stage, the curious media dictatorship of Silvio Berlusconi. Italian history contains in its history all the problems of modern Europe and some unique to it. Its culture through the pizza, the pasta and the fine consumer products has become world-wide, and its children live in large numbers in every major city in the world.
Course Syllabus (PDF)
